But you're articulating the very stereotypes that are already harmful to Asian Americans, particularly those that aren't super smart or number-savvy. The presumption that Asians are studious and industrious, and that therefore discrimination against them is not as pressing as discrimination against less well-off groups, serves to disregard even overt employment actions against them. And if you're an Asian American man who doesn't have advanced degrees or skillsets and make your living through a profession like construction, that's super harmful.
I'm not talking about stereotypes, but statistical and historical patterns which can be observed. As a collective group, Asians have proven to be difficult to discriminate against. Not that such attempts have not been made.
When a large number of America's doctors come from Asian backgrounds, can the Americans really afford to start treating them like shit in the midst of a crisis?
We have to be realistic about the vulnerability of each group to exploitation. Immigrants coming from the 3rd world with no education, no established communities, are going to be more "exploitable" and more prone to being harmed by discriminatory policies, than collectives which already possess a degree of wealth, power and influence, communities with strong bonds and established institutions. I could be looked at sideways, or downward or upward or whatever, but that wouldn't immediately take away the privileges that I have already attained, compared to some guy fresh off a boat.
Asians is obviously a big group but if we're talking about groups which some hick might mistake for being Chinese (unless they're very drunk/stupid, then that might extend to a few others), then they're pretty well-off by any standard of development. I wouldn't worry too much about some goon looking sideways.
Even just based on appearances I find it easy to guess which countries Asians are most likely to be from. Although of course there's shared ancestry and ethnic groups between a lot of them. Then there's the accents, even when they are speaking English. Not to mention clothes, food, mannerisms etc.
I wasn't only talking about appearances though, you're right in the sense that I mean there's people that don't think there are any meaningful differences between Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese.
I have to say that I'm pretty bad at telling apart white guys. I had two American Mormons approach me on the street a couple of weeks ago, and I just figured them to be regular Finnish dudes, until they started speaking English.
I don't know what the big difference is. Of course I can probably tell the difference between a Swede and an Italian, well, atleast in most cases.
